every day to the election. if you see him give one good performance and the next day they're off message, it's more of what we've seen the bumbling along throughout the campaign. and i think for president obama the challenge is, as my former boss howard dean said, don't get irritable. it's going to be hard when governor romney is going to try to get him with his little zingers, to not get annoyed at the lack of searsneriousness an lack of actual facts. so i think most of us at this point are expecting, romney can have a mediocre performance and i think he will get good spin the next day. >> steve, the romney campaign is up against another difficulty in the poll which is the public's actual expectation at this point. the "washington post" poll shows that among likely voters, 55% of them expect president obama to win the debate. 31% expect mitt romney to win the debate. and presumably that expectation will color the way those viewers watch that debate. >> yeah. it could. i mean, maybe this is the one risk maybe t